Thread: How to make a Skel holding a Kettle of Fire Float

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The entrance to our Home Haunt has two columns of Skulls with an arch of skulls across the top. I thought it would be cool to have a floating Skel holding a small kettle of fire next to each column.

Needed:
1. Two Spirit Skels
2. Two Spirit small kettles of fire with chains to hold them up.
3. Plastic Epoxy Putty (Walmart)
4. Spray paint for plastic (Home Depot) -one black and one white
5. Two 1/4 inch metal rods about 2 feet long
6. Two 6 inch long twist ties - black or clear wire.

Solution:
1. Cut about 3/4" of Plastic Epoxy putty from the roll and kneed it until its a uniform color.
2. Put the putty over one eye of one skel. Shape it into an evil brow as desired. Try to feather the putty to blend it into the surface of the skull at the edges of the putty. As the putty starts to set, you might need to wet your fingers to finish the feathering. Clean up your hands with paint thinner. Repeat this for all four brows of the skels.
3. When the putty has set up, use the black plastic paint to cover the brows, and most of the skulls. I tried hitting the teeth of one skull with white, but it's a bit bright for my taste.
4. At a greater distance, lightly spray the entire skel with the black paint. The goal, for my haunt, was to make the skel mostly black with some "bone" color showing through the black. Remember, my skull columns are solid black.
5. Now the Fire Kettles. These come with three equal length chains mounted at equal distances around the edge of the kettle and meeting at a ring from which the kettle will be hung. shorten one of the chains by about three links. This is done by slipping the chain out of the clip that attaches it to the kettle, then slipping it back on three links shorter.
6. Next turn the kettle upside down. Notice the long thin vent slots radiating from the center of the bottom of the kettle. Bend the end of a twist tie into a "U." Slip the "U" into a vent slot and up and out the next slot. Pull the twist tie through until it is long enough to twist back onto itself, securing it to the bottom of the kettle with a 4-5 inch length sticking out.
7. For my haunt, the next step was to drill a horizontal hole about 6 feet high, just a tiny bit larger than the metal rods, into the side of the 2x4 behind the skull columns at the entrance of the haunt.
8. Spray paint the rods flat black. When they dry, push them into the drilled holes.
9. Slip the skel over the rod between the arm and the shoulder. After the first shoulder is on, slip the kettle's hanging ring over the rod with the short length closest to the front side of the spine of the skel. The slip the rod between the other arm and the shoulder of the skel.
10. Place hands, one at a time, under the kettle so that the twist tie can be laced through a couple of fingers of each hand and then tied to itself to make it appear like the hands are holding the kettle.
11. Power to the kettle comes from a long electric cord that exits the kettle at the center of the bottom. Pull the cord straight back to the spine. Use black duct tape to cover the cord as you run it up the spine to the black metal rod. In my case, I then ran it behind the skull column and plugged it in to an extension cord.

Here's mine:

Oh that's really cool. They look amazing next to your columns.

Thanks Terra. This was one of those really simple projects that was inspired by some of the more complicated props I've seen here on HF. I'm sure it didn't take 2 hours to actually execute but was more effective than other props I spend days on. I wish I had been able to find my tripod so I could have taken some night pics of it. The light of the "flames" bounced off the evil brows really nicely.

Great project!

This was so quick, it's kinda cheating to call it a project. The brows took the longest, but I don't think that took 20 minutes.